HYDE PARK — President Barack Obama sat out the normal display of heading to the polls to cast his ballot in this year's city election.
Though the president was in Chicago on Thursday and made a quick stop at home, he did not head over to the early voting site for the 4th Ward at the Martin Luther King Community Center, 4314 S. Cottage Grove Ave., to cast a ballot.
The president pitched in for his former chief of staff, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, recording a radio ad and stopped at the office of his own alderman, Will Burns, to give the incumbent a vote of support.
But the president did not vote for Emanuel or Burns while in town.
White House officials said Barack and Michelle Obama voted absentee this year.
In Oakland, lining up on Cottage Grove Avenue to watch the president vote at the Kings Center has been a tradition of other recent elections.
"It's more real than seeing him on TV," said Anne Ogwal, who drove up from Downstate Champaign in 2012 to watch the president vote. "Now I see why everyone goes crazy."
As of Feb. 23, early voting totals were up 37 percent in the 4th Ward over the 2011 city election. The ward boundaries have changed, though, to include more of the South Loop and downtown since the 2011 election.
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